NEWTOWN, Conn. — Former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona yesterday visited the Connecticut town where a gunman killed 26 people last month inside an elementary school.

Giffords, who was shot and critically wounded in a 2011 shooting, met with US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman and Newtown’s first selectman, Pat Llodra, according to an assistant. Giffords was accompanied by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

She met with families of Newtown victims, according to Steve Jensen, a spokesman for Wyman.

Giffords was left partially blind, with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury, when a gunman opened fire at a constituent meet-and-greet outside a Tucson grocery store on Jan. 8, 2011. Arizona’s chief federal judge and five others were killed and 13 people, including Giffords, were injured.

The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences.